Explain to me (in simple terms) this hate for diesel?

[the wopster]

I have the 185bhp TDi in my VRS and I average 52mpg combined driving.... Does your brother have a lead right foot...

I was just thinking the same thing, I do 4 miles to work and I get 44-46 mpg easily in my diesel

 

[[TW]Fox]

50mpg around town from a 2 litre petrol Mazda?

 

[Dis86]

Rain...let me introduce to my old 320d. That would get 60mpg around town. When I had problems with the engine it still never dropped below 52.5.

 

[Rainmaker]

50mpg around town from a 2 litre petrol Mazda?

The 1.5 and 2.0 SkyActiv engines are built to be ridiculously economical (14:1 compression, multi-stage injection, modified piston crowns, 4:2:1 manifold etc). I could get mid 30s to 40mpg out of our 6 so in a car half the size 50mpg was a breeze.

Rain...let me introduce to my old 320d. That would get 60mpg around town. When I had problems with the engine it still never dropped below 52.5.

Good engines, for sure. Did it get 60mpg on journeys less than 1 to 2 miles though, from stone cold? Any diesel I've ever owned wouldn't warm up that quickly. My 1.9 PD would return around 22mpg over that distance, and my later 2.0 TDIs wouldn't do much better. If not then you've missed my point.

Again, I'm not saying diesels aren't good on fuel when used right. I'm not an idiot. I saw 78mpg indicated, 72mpg brim to brim verified crawling from Liverpool to Brighton in my 1.9 PD once. What I am saying is modern petrols can be just as economical if not better under some circumstances these days, and the trend is increasing as more and more development moves over to petrol.

This is Motors though, right? So wouldn't we all rather drive a proper engine at 20mpg than a diesel at 50mpg?

 

[Nasher]

Also the mpg counters in some cars are not entirely truthful. I especially wouldn't trust ones from German manufacturers

Japanese cars tend to be more truthful though, both on paper and real world figures.

 

[darknite]

I would go as far to say as the internal trip lies about mpg. Take a look at honest john's real mpg. Also working it out on paper between tanks.

That 320d suggests 52.9 unless you get the EfficientDynamics which says 59.1. Might have to see how much those are!

 

[Havana_UK]

Also the mpg counters in some cars are not entirely truthful. I especially wouldn't trust ones from German manufacturers

Japanese cars tend to be more truthful though, both on paper and real world figures.

My old E91 320d was a little on the optimistic side but only by 3% on average.

In my M135i if anything it's slightly under the real value (averaging 34.2MPG BTW over nearly 50k miles so far!)

Interestingly I never got the 320d anywhere close to the quoted figures, but the M135i does better (though still some way offer the official 37.7MPG combined that is claimed).

 

[SC0TTRS]

Had 3 Diesel's over the years, never really considered them fun to be honest, Scirocco 170 went well but it was still...diesel.

Only bought them to save on fuel bill and they did just that, 74mpg I was getting from my mk4 Golf GTTDi 110, and a bit less with the my 2nd one which was a 130.

Nice to be back using petrol again, but not driving that much nowadays.

 

[Joe T]

Well countered,

Its still funny though how we talk about diesels like this, but plenty of less developed places you'll still see plenty of reek coming from ancient vehicles and infrastructure.

Surely bringing these areas up to our current standards will have a much greater overall impact than trying to squeeze diminishing returns.

This is my opinion too.

I'm all for a collaborative effort in making the environment cleaner, but when pollution from other countries can still make their way to the UK (Weather dependent), then it does raise the question of all the effort involved, when we're still being polluted by something out of our control.

I think the reason pollution is so bad in cities (vs the countryside) is due to locally generated pollution rather than pollution that's flown half way round the world.

This thread is about the downsides of diesel - which is predominantly local pollution.

 

[Dis86]

I would go as far to say as the internal trip lies about mpg. Take a look at honest john's real mpg. Also working it out on paper between tanks.

That 320d suggests 52.9 unless you get the EfficientDynamics which says 59.1. Might have to see how much those are!

Mine was the ED and would happily exceed the 59.1. It was a very good engine.

 

[Phemo]

I would go as far to say as the internal trip lies about mpg. Take a look at honest john's real mpg. Also working it out on paper between tanks.

That 320d suggests 52.9 unless you get the EfficientDynamics which says 59.1. Might have to see how much those are!

I've got a 2010 320d ED. I pretty much exclusively do long journeys - my shortest trip is to my office which is 60 miles - so it works quite well for me.

Since my trip computer was reset in July 2015 I've apparently averaged 54.3mpg over 48k miles. It's done pretty well really but the best I've ever seen was 825 miles out of a tank which is claimed to be 61 litres, but I put around 63 litres in after that. 825 miles and 63 litres works out to 59.5mpg but that was driving Portsmouth to Newcastle and back like a grandad.

Probably going to look at changing cars later this year, but not really sure what I'm going to end up with. I don't really like diesel, but since I do around 30-35k a year and I only do long journeys, it does work out quite well in my case. I'd like to go back to a petrol but I'm not sure what else can give around 160+bhp at that kind of real-world economy.

 

[Greebo]

Hate for diesel? It's for trucks, not cars

Also bear in mind servicing costs and ancillaries tend to be more expensive for diesels (in general). And diesel fuel is not cheaper (as it is in the continent, though I believe this is changing), and modern petrols are reasonably economical now.

Lastly, diesels are just torque machines (all torque, no action.... ) - Okay I admit, the v8 diesels are pretty impressive but then you might as well get a v8 petrol instead as economy no longer becomes an item for discussion!

v8 deisels are pretty economical. My boss has the 2.3 tonne sq7 barge and gets 30 mpg from its v8 electric tri turbo'd diesel engine and i think its 0-60 it s5 secs which is pretty quick for something that weighs that much.

Without checking, i seriously doubt you can find a petrol v8 of that size which comes anywhere close to the 30mpg.

 

[Rilot]

v8 deisels are pretty economical. My boss has the 2.3 tonne sq7 barge and gets 30 mpg from its v8 electric tri turbo'd diesel engine and i think its 0-60 it s5 secs which is pretty quick for something that weighs that much.

Without checking, i seriously doubt you can find a petrol v8 of that size which comes anywhere close to the 30mpg.

Averaging 26mpg at the moment from a 5.0 V8 petrol. If it's 4mpg difference I'd rather keep the petrol.

 

[Firestar_3x]

Averaging 26mpg at the moment from a 5.0 V8 petrol. If it's 4mpg difference I'd rather keep the petrol.

Impressive average, what sort of trips are we talking about?

 

[Havana_UK]

Averaging 26mpg at the moment from a 5.0 V8 petrol. If it's 4mpg difference I'd rather keep the petrol.

My old boss had the XK-RS and even he averaged 22mpg in it, and he liked to hoon around a bit as well. Modern petrol engines are surprising economical, it's just no-one really knows that because they're all driving diesels!

 

[Freefaller]

v8 deisels are pretty economical. My boss has the 2.3 tonne sq7 barge and gets 30 mpg from its v8 electric tri turbo'd diesel engine and i think its 0-60 it s5 secs which is pretty quick for something that weighs that much.

Without checking, i seriously doubt you can find a petrol v8 of that size which comes anywhere close to the 30mpg.

Yeah but it's still a diesel